The extraction of geothermal heat can cause precipitation of the minerals dissolved in
geothermal fluid. Their deposition on the walls of wells and above-ground plant and in pores
near reinjection wells, also known as mineral scaling, is one of the main obstacles to
increasing the effectiveness of utilization of the limited geothermal resources. If not
controlled properly it can result in accumulation of a significant amount of scale which
obstructs pipes and reinjection wells and reduces the efficacy of heat exchangers.
The most abundant mineral in geothermal fluid is silica and thus its precipitation can cause
the highest scaling rate. While this dissertation is devoted to the study of silica scaling the
results obtained may be applicable to other minerals with similar deposition mechanism.
Oversaturated silica is known to precipitate from aqueous solution either by the direct
chemisorption of single silicic acid molecules (monomers) or by forming colloidal particles
suspended in the solution. These particles can subsequently be transported to, and attach onto,
a wall. This process of colloidal silica deposition was previously recognised to cause much
faster scaling than the direct deposition of silica monomers under typical geothermal plant
conditions.
While the chemical kinetics of silica polymerization and colloid formation are relatively well
understood, transport of these colloids and their stability, which control their aggregation and
attachment rates, on the other hand are not.
Previous studies of the silica scaling process have identified prominent effects of geothermal
brine hydrodynamics on the scaling rate. It was found to increase with the flow rate and
particle size, thus suggesting the dominance of the advective (inertial) deposition of colloidal
silica. However, this conclusion contradicted the present theory of particle transport in
turbulent flows which argues the dominance of the diffusive transport for the relevant range
of particle sizes (<1 μm).
The development and continuing improvement of the anti-scaling measures required deeper
understanding of the complex combination of the phenomena involved in the process of silica
scaling. This was pursued in the present study using theoretical and experimental methods.
First, the rate of colloidal silica transport from a turbulent flow onto the internal surface of a
circular pipe, a cylinder and a flat plate were calculated using available analytical and
numerical methods. The obtained theoretical transport rate was found to be about four orders
of magnitude higher than the corresponding experimental scaling rate. The latter was
determined in the previous studies to be 4.2·10-8 kg/s/m2 for silica colloids of 125 nm in
diameter which corresponded to the dimensionless deposition velocity (the dimensionless
deposition velocity is the scaling rate normalised by the particle mass concentration and
friction velocity) of 1.2·10-6 for the dimensionless particle relaxation time of 2·10-4.
Next, based on the standard DLVO theory of particle interactions and in the framework of the
Smoluchowski approach the probability of colloidal silica particle attachment to a wall was
found to be 10-6.
Therefore, the theoretical scaling rate, calculated as a product of this probability and the
above-mentioned transport rate was two orders of magnitude lower than the experimental
scaling rate. This suggested that the implemented theoretical approach either underestimated
particle transport rate or overestimated particle stability. Both possibilities are explored in
this dissertation.
In addition, the silica scaling rate was measured for a range of conditions: particle size from
20 to 60 nm, particle concentration 1600-10000 ppm, friction velocity from 0.09 to 0.18 m/s
(Re = 9-50·103) and ionic strength from 30 to 80 mM, pH 8.1-9.5 and temperature from 25 to
44 °C. For this, laboratory experiments were designed and progressively modified in order to
improve the repeatability of the results and to study the scaling process. In these experiments
colloidal silica deposition onto the walls of mild steel pipe sections was studied with a
recirculating flow rig with variable (but controllable) particle size, concentration, flow rate,
pH and ionic strength of the solution. In addition, a parallel plate flow test section was
designed and built which will provide better capabilities for the control over the
hydrodynamic and test surface conditions in future experiments.
The control over the chemical conditions was achieved by the use of the synthetic colloidal
solutions. Two methods of their production – hydrolysis of either sodium metasilicate or
active silicic acid – were employed. The influence of the synthesis conditions, ion content
and pH on the long term behaviour of these colloidal solutions was investigated. The particle
size data, obtained using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and verified by electron microscopy,
was analysed and compared against the predictions of the current models of nanoparticle
growth and stability. The kinetic aggregation was identified to be the dominant particle
growth mechanism.
Experimental data collected during the long-term observations of the particle growth allowed
relationships between the aggregative stability and such parameters as the particle size, ion
concentration and pH of the solution to be elucidated. In particular, the aggregative stability
of 10-20 nm particles was found to be 108-1010 which is 7-9 orders of magnitude higher than
the corresponding DLVO stability. It was also found to decrease with the increase of the
particle size. This agreed with the theory of the colloid stabilization by steric interactions.
Moreover, the model of the “gel” layer was used to explain the observed “anomalies” of the
colloidal silica behaviour. The deposition experiments conducted with these synthetic
colloidal solutions showed that the scaling rate increased with the particle size, flow rate and
ionic strength (IS) of the solution. Thus, it was measured to be 9.7·10-9 kg/s/m2 for the 45 nm
particles in a solution with IS = 0.05 M, which corresponded to the dimensionless deposition
velocity of 6.6·10-8 for a dimensionless particle relaxation time of 2.2·10-6.
The scaling rate was calculated for these conditions by multiplying the corresponding
transport rate and the actual attachment probability determined as an inverse of the
experimental stability. It was found to agree with the experimental value within an order of
magnitude. In addition, the observed increase of the scaling rate with the increase of particle
size was explained by the compensation of the decreased rate of the particle transport by
faster decrease of actual particle stability (increase in attachment probability). Therefore the
contradiction between the theory and the experiment was resolved for the particles of 20 to
60 nm in diameter.
Moreover, the observations of the dimensions and distribution of the scale elements formed
in some of the present experiments strongly suggested the significance of the advective
(inertial) mechanism of particle deposition. This and comparative analysis of other
experimental and theoretical data suggested that the present theory may underestimate the
convective transport of the particles onto a rough wall. Therefore, the hypothesis of the
parallel-to-wall advective deposition of the nanoparticles onto the roughness/scale elements
(not accounted in the current theory) was proposed. The corresponding mass transfer problem
was solved analytically using experimentally found dimensions of the scale elements. The
additional transport was found to decrease the above-stated discrepancy between the
theoretical and experimental scaling rate for large (125 nm) particles by one order of
magnitude. The remaining difference of one order of magnitude was speculated to be due to
the underestimation of these particles attachment probability derived with the standard
DLVO theory. The actual aggregative stability of the silica colloids larger than 60 nm in
diameter and for a wider range of IS values is of interest for future experimental studies.
An improved understanding of the interrelation between the chemical and hydrodynamic
phenomena in the process of silica scaling and its dominant mechanisms was achieved in this
dissertation. This allowed optimization of the present anti-scaling practices aimed to
minimize the negative effects of mineral scaling on the operation of geothermal power
stations. Besides the practical recommendations, which may ultimately help to increase the
efficiency of geothermal power stations, the results of the present study may be of value in
the fields of mass transfer and colloid science.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/10247 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Kokhanenko, Pavlo |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Mechanical Egineering |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Pavlo Kokhanenko, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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